Thought for the Day

[sukumvit boy]

I have heard the idea that it is time to 'drain the swamp' with regard to tax code and truly reform the tax system with a flat tax which would abolish all the corporate loop holes and raise unprecedented tax revenue , coming from the "one percenters" and corporations that have benefited most from the current tax system.
But I certainly don't see it ever happening in a Trump or a Republican administration !

[filghy2]

They have already ruled out the border-adjustment tax that Paul Ryan had favoured, which was a proposal along those lines. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...727-story.html That suggests they are unlikely to do anything that would disadvantage existing business interests too much.

[Stavros]

I have heard the idea that it is time to 'drain the swamp' with regard to tax code and truly reform the tax system with a flat tax which would abolish all the corporate loop holes and raise unprecedented tax revenue , coming from the "one percenters" and corporations that have benefited most from the current tax system.
But I certainly don't see it ever happening in a Trump or a Republican administration !

I will have to assume this is sarcasm as the Flat Tax would be a disaster for the US, as it would be for the UK where it almost became UKIP policy in the last election. A Flat Tax would not eliminate loopholes or other measures designed to recognise the diversity of work and income, which is why there is a progressive tax system. There may be more efficient ways of calculating tax on the basis of production and income but the idea that a billionaire should pay the same basic tax rate as a bus driver is insulting, not least because the billionaire already pays less tax than a bus driver, and under a flat tax, the bus driver would be better off out of work, if he doesn't lose his job anyway when the economy tanks and the national debt rises by a trillion $ a year.

[sukumvit boy]

Sorry , I must be using the wrong word for the tax system I was thinking of , that certainly isn't what I had in mind . It wasn't the 'border adjusted tax ' that flighty2 linked to either. I'll have to go back and check where I read / heard about it . If I'm not mistaken Bernie Sanders was an advocate .

[sukumvit boy]

Sorry , I found it. It's from Richard D Wolff's books "Capitalism's Crisis Deepens" and "Democracy at Work:A Cure for Capitalism".
http://www.rdwolff.com/

https://www.opednews.com/articles/Wh..._Government-17

[filghy2]

That article has disappeared, but it seems Wolff wants to go back to a far more progressive tax system, as applied in the past. https://www.opednews.com/articles/Wh...70331-490.html He's pretty vague on how this would be achieved, however - I don't think he is a tax expert.

[Stavros]

It may be possible, even desirable, for a government to simplify its tax codes, but I don't think the codes can ever be simple. Tax in general is either opposed on moral grounds, or accepted as part of the social contract where citizen's surrender some of their rights to the State to be protected, to be given opportunities that they would not have if there were no government at all. I think most people who accept they are going to be taxed, believe taxes should be fair, and that the money raised from taxation should be used for the common good. Thus resentment with taxes tends to be based on the view that some are paying more than others and that most often the richer you are the less tax you pay. A triumph of the new Conservatism that was ushered in by Thatcher, Reagan and Kohl was based on the fiction that lower taxes provides commercial enterprise and individuals with more incentive to grow, leading to jobs and prosperity, whereas the developments taking place in capitalism at the time proved otherwise. Low taxation was also supposed to be morally valid as it took power away from government and returned it to 'the people', yet here we are so many years later, Government is a major employer -in some countries, like the USA, the largest single source of employment- and the State subsidizes everything from food and fishes, to industry, wages, housing, health, education....the list goes on.

If there was more clarity about what taxation is for, how it can work for the benefit of all and not just reward the few, the public would agree to increasing taxes on a lot of activities, with reductions on others: as Stiglitz has argued in the book cited above, Corporations could pay less tax if they create jobs, but more if they don't. In the end it is all about being fair and reasonable, which is what most people, most of the time are.

[bluesoul]

so- according to former head of state steve bannon (the loose cannon), the catholic church defends DACA because it needs illegal aliens to fill it's churches. exactly how does that work again? just let people enter the country illegally and they flood into catholic churches automatically? is that actually something that happens?

also, i don't understand why charlie ross didn't ask him about the mooch's accusations that he can suck his own cock. would've been cool to finally get to the bottom of that story but oh well-



in other news: rush (why?) limbaugh claims that hurricane irma is part of a conspiracy created by the media to make it look like "the oceans are having an exorcism" so they can "get rid of the devil here in the form of this hurricane, this bright red stuff"

weird coming from a guy that lives in palm beach florida. but i think at this point, it's a matter of the left (or the media) said it so IT MUST BE WRONG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.92aa48050c79

[broncofan]

Was wondering if anyone has been following Hillary's actions of late, including her book What Happened and Verrit? I don't know enough about either her book or the media outlet Peter Daou is starting but I question her instincts. She says she wrote the book because she is too careful in public and this was a chance for her to let her guard down. While I am sympathetic to the fact that her caution is the result of her facing many unfair attacks, her "cautious" persona made her look too calculating and inauthentic. She never seemed like she was expressing her view of anything.

I suppose what I am saying is that I respect that she has the right to vent or to keep herself in the public eye, but I'm just not really sure what the point of all of this is now except that she gets to tell her side of things...

Maybe those of us who are cringing aren't being fair...there is a sense the party wants her to go away, that she had her shot and didn't come through and that everybody neesd to move forward, but she does have a right to do what she wants. The media outlet she endorsed (verrit) looks like a disaster though.

[Stavros]

Hillary Clinton has strengths and weaknesses, and I have also seen advance snippets of her book in the UK press which is part of the marketing campaign that such books engage in to create an interest to boost sales. She was, quite simply, an establishment candidate at a time when enough people wanted someone different, the bitter irony being that the man who won the Presidency, realising early on he was incapable of doing the job, has staffed almost his entire staff with establishment figures, so the 'change' the people voted for has been expressed mostly in the juvenile tone of the President's tweets and speeches, and a sequence of executive orders shaped by revenge rather than reason.

Hillary Clinton spent years in the Governor's Mansion, the White House and the Senate, and I don't think she ever had 'the common touch', and became used to the routine privileges that come with high office. I don't think she ever had it, in the manner in which, for example, Joe Biden appears to have it. Clinton is like Gordon Brown, who has a brilliant mind, but was clearly uncomfortable campaigning on the doorstep, but I don't think she would have been a bad President and would have chosen some smart people to key roles in government. But I do think she had her chance, and lost, and it is time to withdraw from public life and allow the Democrats to re-define their mission and move into a new era. Clinton in reality was on 'the right' of the Democrats and could at one time have been on 'the left' of the Republican Party, but those days are gone.

One interesting and sour note is her criticism of Bernie Sanders, who she points out was not -and is not- a Democrat. It really is time for the parties in the US to create rules that make it impossible for anyone to run as their candidate in a Presidential election if they have no direct links to the party, or, as with Sanders, have been elected on a different ticket. Had Sanders not run, who else might have run against Mrs Clinton for the party nomination?